The Age of Connectedness

Physicist Derek Muller runs an "edutainment," or educational-entertainment, channel on YouTube called Veritasium.  What makes his videos particularly effective is that is he able to blend scientific concepts with approachable and relatable references that do not require any sort of a math or science background in order to follow.

In his latest video, he discusses some fascinating social behaviors of the connections between people in society through Facebook or other internet platforms, all the while using set theory and combinatorics to further explain the observable patterns (and he doesn't even have to say the words "set theory" or "combinatorics" to do so).

The topic centers around how many (or how few) connections it takes for you to meet or become acquainted with anyone else in the world.  Some of you may remember the game that reached some level of fame around a decade ago called, the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.  This followed a similar premise - that through no more than five other actors you could trace any actor, by a movie they were in, back to one that Kevin Bacon was in.  While the game was fun for about 5 minutes, the premise has very important implications in how connected society has now become.

In fact, through the expansion of the user-base of Facebook in conjunction with the spread of internet services into developing countries, it is posited (by none other than the rockstar of Astronomy himself, Neil deGrasse Tyson, while making a cameo appearance) that now the number may have reduced from six connections between you and anyone else in the world, down to five or maybe even four.  The connections you have today, through your network of friends, could be no more than 4 handshakes away from anyone else in the world.

Because of how the prevalence of the internet is allowing more and more people to gather in digital assemblies, preliminary discussions have begun on whether the current era should be ascribed "The Age of Connectedness".  While I think it is a bit premature to delineate a brand new age, given the fact that we just finally labeled "The Information Age" in the last decade or so, I agree that this is just the beginning of how important digital, social connections will become in society.  That said, I am not sold on the idea that the level of connectedness will only continue to grow as time goes on.  With all of the information breaches happening lately, I am predicting an eventual backlash against the proliferation of these connections.  Perhaps someday in the future there will be a rebound from all of this, we'll enter into "The Age of Isolation".

For now, I just recommend you check out the video that formed the basis of this post in the link below and hear about it from Derek Muller himself.  If you enjoy the video and want to support his future efforts, don't forget to click the button to subscribe to Veritasium.